By Birgitta Wolfe, Managing Editor
A former Montgomery resident, who became a quadriplegic from a fall when helping a 93-year-old woman get her wheelchair off Monntgomery Township’s senior bus, has been awarded a $3.575 million settlement.
”It’s one of the most rewarding cases I’ve ever handled,” said Szaferman Lakind trial attorney Michael Paglione, of Harvest Lane in Columbus.
Mr. Paglione’s client, Ruixiang Shen, fell backward from the senior bus in Belle Mead on Nov. 22, 2006, breaking his neck in two places.
Before that, the 71-year-old retired administrator at Shanghai University regularly played badminton with his grandchildren and enjoyed riding his bike on country roads in Somerset County. Today he is a quadriplegic who needs 24-hour care and, according to Mr. Paglione, is unable even sit up for more than 20 minutes at a time.
When rehabilitation expenses mounted to $1,000 a day that he could not afford, Mr. Shen moved back to Shanghai to be cared for by family and an aide.
Mr. Paglione and his law partner at the Lawrence Township law firm, Craig Hubert, traveled to China and spent 11 days in Shanghai taking depositions and trial testimony for the case.
”It’s just horrible. He sleeps on what amounts to an Army cot and is his on his back 23 hours a day. An aide feeds him and sits him up for 20 minutes. He watches TV that’s projected onto the ceiling. He hasn’t left that room, which is about 12 by 12 feet since 2007,” Mr. Paglione said.
Mr. Shen and his wife, Mei Rong Gao, who was a teacher at Shanghai University, had lived with their oldest son in Montgomery.
”At the time of the accident, Mr. Shen was studying English at the Senior Center, intending to become a United States citizen. Ironically, his green card arrived one year to the day after his fall. This award will enable him to return from China, become a U.S. citizen, and live out his days with his son and daughter-in-law in New Jersey. He will finally be able to get the care and treatment he needs,” Mr. Paglione said, who announced the settlement Sept. 13
”I made a promise to him at his bedside to get him back to the United States,” the attorney said. “I’ll be there to greet him. I promised him.”
He noted that the son is now looking for a place here to retrofit to accommodate Mr. Shen.
The attorney said life will be much improved for Mr. Shen in the States because drugs are available here to treat his low blood pressure, and will enable him to sit up without fainting. The low blood pressure results from being inactive and confined, he added.
The 21-count lawsuit charging Montgomery with, among other things, negligence and violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, was scheduled to be heard in state Superior Court in Somerset County on Sept. 9.
The case went to mediation in February 2010. The first township offer had been $500,000, and an offer of $2.5 million was also rejected before the eventual settlement, Mr. Paglione said.
He said the Montgomery Township government endangered its seniors every time it transported them by bus because the driver was not trained and unable to handle the handicap lift..
”This tragedy was entirely preventable. Operating senior buses with untrained drivers and without working handicapped equipment flies in the face of public safety. The bus was equipped with a handicap lift but the driver believed it was broken because she did not know how to operate it,” he said.
He added that after the accident Montgomery banned wheelchairs from the senior bus and now has a county bus to pick up people in wheelchairs.
Montgomery Township’s insurer, Genesis, paid $3,439,169 of the settlement. The remaining $135,830 was paid by NJMEL, the Mid Jersey Municipal Joint Insurance Fund.
Mr. Paglione said, “Every township in New Jersey should take a good look at its senior buses and driver training to ensure that our seniors are kept out of harm’s way.”
